The Best Director

Chapter 495: Magic with a unique flavor

"You will never understand why we do magic. The audience knows the truth. The world is actually very simple and sad, and it is real from beginning to end. But if you can fool them, even for just a second, then , you just wow them. And then you can... you can see something really special. You really don't know? That's the look on their face."

"Never reveal the secret. They will beg you and flatter you. Once you tell it, you will be of no use. Understand? It's worthless. The secret of magic is nothing important, but the skill of doing magic is important."

The cinema was brightly lit at night, and the auditorium of the screening hall of "The Prestige" was full. Everyone was watching the story on the big screen. Most people were absorbed in watching it, and a few people were yawning. It was obvious that Nolan Brother, this magic trick cannot fool everyone, not every audience is amazed.

As time goes by, the film is shown one after another. If you look at it with a super-fast lens, the seats in the screening hall will be empty for a while, and the audience will be sitting here and there, and it will be quite full again... …

"How was it? What did the film critics say?", "How much? Did it do well at the box office?!"...

Warner Bros. is more concerned about the critical response and box office of "The Prestige" than the Fire movie. Alan F. Horn and others have good reasons to do so. Maybe the Fire can withstand the first failure, end the unprecedented miracle, and fall into the world. ; But Warner Bros. can’t take it! That damn Darren Aronofsky left a big mess. Is "The Dark Knight" going to make the mess bigger?

Without Wang Yang's intervention, Warner Bros.'s follow-up strategy for "War Begins" would be as follows: there will be no sequel. After a few years, we will find a new team to produce a new series, just like "Superman Returns." Now it's a difficult situation. Although they have decided to bite the bullet and believe in Wang Yang and Nolan, the report card of "The Prestige" is very critical, it is like Midway.

Looking at the newly released performance data, Horn's face was filled with uncertainty. No other Warner executives were smiling. On the contrary, most of them frowned slightly. Why must they choose Nolan? Miracle Young is really not reassuring!

Rotten Tomatoes critic review rating is 76! It seems good, but the freshness rating of well-known film critics is only 59, and this puddle of rot has become a lingering worry in their hearts. Although Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave it a score of 34 and praised it: "This is a quite unique (), fascinating, almost diabolical movie." "Los Angeles Times" Kenneth Turan also hit 45 and praised: "Enthusiasm, unique flavor () entertainment."

But what Warner wants most is mainstream, not unique, but mainstream where the more viewers the better!

However, many mainstream media including The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Observer, and the Associated Press criticized it.

Rex Reed said: "The suspense and cleverness of this movie just make it feel more angry and contrived." Stephen Qu said: "Unfortunately, the script was too much for his own liking." Stephen Weah said : "The Nolan brothers' pretentiousness creates infuriating chaos." Mick Russell said: "Director Nolan has no problem achieving popular success with the charm of magic and tricks, but when he takes over a mainstream theme, these will change. Very scary.”…

ng, ved, ng... These comments undoubtedly show that they disdain "The Prestige". If the so-called suspense relies on deliberately messing up the timing, deliberately making people confused and confusing, The whole movie is chaotic and pretentious. What's so great about this kind of magic trick? To them, the Nolan brothers turned out to be a crappy magic trick.

Mainstream themes! This is what Warner Bros. executives are afraid of. If the brothers use the structural techniques of "Memento" and "The Prestige" and match the literary and artistic style of "Mr. Hughes" to shoot "The Dark Knight", the consequences will be disastrous!

Perhaps it is worth reassuring that at least the movie fans were "cheated". They are very satisfied with the performance of the Nolan brothers. The Rotten Tomatoes like rating is as high as 90, and the imdb score is as high as 8.4!

"It's a masterpiece, full of emotion, twists and intrigue." PV gave it five stars; "It's just a little better than The Magician. I didn't understand it and I had to ask someone else." Caitlin - g gave it four and a half stars; "Although it's a little unnecessarily confusing, it may be Christopher Nolan's most amazing movie to date, but that doesn't stop it from being excitingly great." Ethan-k gave it four stars. ; Andrew-r gave it five stars: "Flawless! This movie is awe-inspiring. But it's like a detective novel, you have to pay attention to all the clues, maybe need to watch it twice like me."...

From the first day the film was released, the Nolan brothers have been in a very excited and nervous mood. Each film is carefully crafted, and "The Prestige" is their full-scale operation of narrative techniques. The operation of the flame movie It’s also impeccable, so there’s no excuse for the film’s poor performance.

The praises from the audience and film critics made them happy, but the criticisms hurt them, especially today when the Rotten Tomatoes Index has become an important indicator, and well-known film critics turned out to be unqualified! No one likes to be recognized. The authority of the mainstream media makes it carry a lot of weight. The evaluation balance quietly tilts towards the "somewhat bad" side. It is not ideal anyway. After all, it has to fully achieve "there are so many viewers" "Like it, who cares about the hundreds of film critics" is difficult, after all, the Nolan brothers are arrogant.

In this regard, Wang Yang and the Nolan brothers had a video conference conversation. Without those magics and tricks, it would not be "The Magic". This cannot be regarded as a failure. It can only be said that you can never satisfy everyone.

"You don't need to worry about anything, just make "The Dark Knight" well! There is no pressure from Warner Bros., understand? Of course, the messy narrative structure has to stop for a while. Don't you want to create a show that will make audiences around the world crazy? Magic?"

Wang Yang encouraged and comforted the two people's wounded hearts, but he did not just fight against each other. Compared with "Memento", "Legendary" does seem artificial and chaotic, with signs of going crazy, just like the magician in the film who pursues magic effects. No matter what, he told them that in pursuit of mystery, suspense and uniqueness, they can start from other aspects, such as the structure of the story itself, not just the chronological structure of telling the story. Too many stories are very charming in themselves, like "Sleep" science".

After listening to Wang Yang's words and the insights brought about by "The Fatal Magic", Nolan fell into another deep thought. There is not enough balance between art and business, self-interest and public interest, the story itself and the narrative sequence. …

"By the way, Yang, I know that Flame recently purchased the rights to adapt the Japanese cartoon "Paprika." During the conversation, Nolan opened this topic.

"Paprika" (ka, meaning Dream Stealing Detective) is a 2D science fiction suspense animated film based on the 1993 novel of the same name by the famous Japanese science fiction novelist Tsutsui Yasutaka. It tells the story of the psychotherapist Atsuko Chiba and the genius scientist Tokida Kosaku. An instrument called "-" has been developed, which allows psychotherapists to enter the patient's dream world, construct and change the patient's dreams, thereby changing his subconscious thoughts, which is quite effective in mental treatment.

Unexpectedly one day, the - was suddenly stolen. Chiba Atsuko was afraid that the prisoner would use the - to commit crimes, so she launched an investigation. However, the people involved in the study began to go crazy because dreams interfered with real behavior. Atsuko was also plotted, but She is not an ordinary person, so the "Dream Stealing Detective Red Hot Chili Pepper" started a fierce battle with the dream stealing terrorists who used "-" to destroy...

"Inception" is directed by the great animation director Satoshi Kon and invested and produced by Madhouse Company. It was just released in Japan last month. However, it has already participated in many film festivals around the world and has been widely praised. It is the best film at this year's Venice Film Festival. One of the nominations.

Flame Films has always expressed a great interest in Japanese animation. When Wang Yang went to Japan for promotion last year, he made it clear that he would adapt excellent animations to the big screen if he had the opportunity. Since the opening of the Venice Film Festival, "Dream Detective" has been noticed by Flame Films. Wang Yang clearly ordered to buy the adapted version of it, SSS level! If Sony, which had invested in it, had not held the North American distribution rights, Flame would not have let it go, but Sony also caused certain difficulties in the process of purchasing the adaptation rights.

Fortunately, the copyright belongs to the Lunatic Asylum, and Miracle Yang did not appear in Shuicheng; at the same time, it is rare for 2D animation to adapt to Hollywood blockbusters. Even the epoch-making comic project "Dragon Ball" is still unclear. How much potential does animation have for live-action movies that cannot even be sold in Japan? neither knows. Despite this, ff still spent a lot of effort and reached some distribution cooperation agreements with Sony before finalizing the contract that was about to be signed.

Recently, fans in the media have learned about the news that has been circulated. Since Miriam Yang has not made any comments, this matter is quite low-key in North America. However, some die-hard Flame fans are looking forward to and excited about it. This subject is very interesting.

"Yes, are you interested in directing it?" Wang Yang asked. He saw "Sleep Science" at Sundance at the beginning of the year, and he recommended it to the Nolan brothers. At that time, Nolan said he was very interested in dreams. , I also want to make a dream-themed movie, but some of my ideas are always hazy. Big Nolan said: "I like mysterious and suspenseful things like dreams. It seems that it is not your plan?" Wang Yang shrugged and said: "I have other plans."

There are too many themes he plans to shoot intentionally. The next 3D film will be related to "mysterious things", but it will not be a dream.

In fact, this kind of dream theme is not new in novels, comics, etc. In terms of movies, "Total Recall", "Invasion of Brain Cells" (a female pediatrician heals the trauma of young patients by manipulating dreams and assists the police in solving crimes), "Sleep" There are also a lot of "Science"; and the relationship between "Invasion of Brain Cells", "Inception" and "Inception" is like "The Matrix" and "Ghost in the Shell".

Now that Flame Films has purchased the rights to adapt "Dream Detective", it can be produced step by step into a detective crime-solving action thriller suspense science fiction series. It is not limited to one day when Nolan is inspired and then talks about cooperation. However, Nolan is The perfect person to bring it to life.

But it’s too early to talk about this at the moment. Wang Yang revealed to the Nolan brothers that Flame will not launch this project soon because firstly, the time has not come yet, and secondly, ff’s production schedule in the next few years is very full, so currently They'll just make "The Dark Knight" and let the dreams and stuff be brewed first, and maybe they'll have other ideas.

"'Fame' reaches the top, 'Nativity' performs mildly" - m network, when December 1-7 passed, Warner Bros. executives breathed a sigh of relief, even though "The Prestige" was trashed by the mainstream media A lot of Rotten Tomatoes, but in terms of box office, Flame Movie still stubbornly did not end the miracle!

"The Prestige" received a box office of 35.76 million in 2,879 North American theaters, with an average of $12,422 per theater. Its first-week performance was almost the same as "The Magician" with 32.36 million, and it successfully won the North American weekly box office championship. It seems that it will naturally not become a box office bomb, but it will not be too difficult to collect 80 million in North America and around 150 million globally. Add in the considerable post-sales revenue, and look at its 40 million production fee. Calculating that Fire Movie will only make less than No wonder m.net’s Brandon Gray described it as “the perfect magic trick of flames.”

New Line Cinema wasn't so lucky and screwed up again! It's no use moving out of the Virgin Mary. "The Nativity", which has been promoted for a long time, only took in 10.19 million at the box office in the first week in 3,083 theaters, with a Rotten Tomatoes index of 385,374. Don't say anything stupid that became "The Passion of the Christ". It was a loss. The big deal is a done deal!

But because of the presence of the Virgin Mary, Brandon Gray pays more attention to the words he uses when reporting. He especially uses meek to describe its average performance of $3,306 per hotel (docile and modest), and does not even use weak (weak); average "Jungle Nightmare" and "King of Repeaters 2", which cost $2,892 and $1,497 respectively, are called ble (trivial).

It is getting closer and closer to the announcement of nominations for this year's 64th Golden Globe Awards on the 14th and the main Christmas season on the 22nd. Under a busy and tense pace, "The Dead" has been completed as scheduled in early December, with a production cost of 70 million. , a large part of which is due to the increase in personnel and salary increase caused by rush to work.

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